[Advaita-l] Ramana Maharshi - Advaitin or Neo Advaitin?

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Please forgive me for my ignorance. I had this long standing doubt about Ramana. I believed that Ramana taught Advaita all along thanks to the popular opinion. However I later realized that he was unacquainted with the scriptures.

>  traditionalists who are familiar with Sri ramaNa's teaching would say he has completed these formalities ( like shAstrAdhyayana, shravaNAdi sAdhana etc.) in his previous janma/s so no need for him to start it again.  Rishi vAmadeva realized the truth in his mother's womb and it is because of his previous janma's saMskAra...justification for not reading the scriptures in this janma would go like this.  

 Further, he apparently learnt from the hill which he considered as Shiva. Isn't this dogma‎tic and a deviation from the tradition?

>  for that matter guru dattatreya had 24 guru-s and all of them were not shrOtriya and brahmanishTa vedAntins as you know, mara (tree) sometimes lead to rAma as in the case of vAlmeeki  :-) 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar